A dauntingly expansive new 68-page report on accounting irregularities at Grambling from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor includes a few items of note for the school’s athletic department — specifically dealing with contracts and tickets.
The state has asked GSU, after years of spotty paperwork and missing money, to provide upfront contracts on all of its money games — most importantly on the cash-rich football contests that help float the university’s budget.
This is the second year that Grambling has been cited for having “conducted business with vendors and other institutions without having current valid contracts,” according to Steve J. Theriot at the state’s Office of the Legislative Auditor.
In all, Theriot said, 70 of 103 (or 68 percent) of the university’s revenue-producing events — including football, basketball, and baseball games — were not supported by a signed contract between the university and the competing school.
“Management of the university has not placed sufficient emphasis on obtaining signed contracts to support its business operations as is evidenced by the number of unsigned contracts and the excessive length of time taken to renew contracts after they have expired,” Theriot said. “Failure to execute signed contracts with clearly identifiable terms and conditions could result in the university paying for services not received and/or incurring unnecessary litigation fees.”
Toughest has been to get signed documents before regular league matchups. That makes some measure of sense, seeing as these footall games have long been played through a gentleman’s agreement through the Southwestern Athletic Conference offices. Grambling has, according to a letter written by school president Horace Judson, now received assurances from SWAC commissioner Duer Sharp that a new blanket contractual agreement is in the works between Grambling and the league’s member institutions.
More perplexing, however, is this: “A cooperative agreement,” Judson writes, in a letter to Theriot dated March 3, “between the universities for the Bayou Classic is still pending.”
Most fans would have guessed that the details of this particular contest, played now a total of 32 times in the Louisiana Superdome, would have been well settled. Yet the Grambling Black and Gold Foundation and the Southern University System Foundation were, according to Judson, set to “begin renewing and finalizing contractual terms by June 30, 2009.”
In today’s financial climate, with millions on the table in potential budget cuts for both institutions, I’d put completing a deal for the Bayou Classic — arguably Grambling’s single most important money maker of any kind each calendar year — on top of the top of the list.
Back to the report: For the fourth consecutive year, Grambling was cited for lack of institutional control in its athletic accounting by the state auditor — notably a lingering inattention to reconciling the number of tickets printed and sold, and a propensity to pass out too many of them.
The auditor, for instance, says that Grambling gave away 96 more road game tickets over the just completed fiscal year than the University of Louisiana System policy allows. Reconciliation of tickets sales for the football team’s five home games took place between 13 days and an astounding seven months — 215 days — after the final whistles blew, Theriot said.
Good news from the report comes in the form of a newly hired athletic business manager — who started, again according to Judson’s response to the auditor’s findings, on Jan. 12.
The position is charged with “establishing and maintaining sound internal controls over all athletics’ accounting and reporting matters,” Judson says. “Since his arrival, this manager has re-engineered GSU’s Ticket Office revenue control program by separating the duties, coupled with enhancing ticket sales receipts, reconciliations, deposits and reporting processes.”
No one is listed on the school’s departmental directory under that title, though former school president Steve Favors has moved over as an assistant athletic director. Brandy Jacobsen, who had been serving on an interim basis, is listed as Grambling’s controller.
Job 1 for Jacobsen, Favors, or whoever is charged with sorting out this mess: Get the Bayou Classic thing nailed down.
Your paycheck may very well depend on it.
GET IN THE GAME:
The complete report from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor can be found here.
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